


Masterless

by atamascolily



Series: Sinbad Virtual Season Two [2]
Category: The Adventures of Sinbad (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-it fic, Gen, Sinbad Season Two AUs, Virtual Season Two: Bryn, virtual season
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-05 12:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13388307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Lured to a castle with a promise of gainful employment, Sinbad is surprised to find his old friend, the samurai warrior Tetsu, in the dungeons. With the rest of the crew serving as hostages, Sinbad and Tetsu must work together to retrieve a priceless artifact for the mysterious being who rules here.Episode 2x02 of a Virtual Season Two where Maeve leaves the crew for a time and Bryn takes her place, but otherwise diverges from the canon season two quite dramatically.





	1. Chapter 1

The dark sorcerer Turok's abode on the Isle of Tears was carved into a cliff face, several hundred feet above the churning sea. The land was also known as Skull Island, and even from a distance, it was easy to see why: the headlands were dominated by huge sculptures of human skulls, carved out of the surrounding bedrock as if by magic (which, in fact, the case). Even the cliff in which Turok dwelled had the outline of a skull etched into it, a warning to any ships forced here by ill-winds and poor luck that this was a place ruled by death and pain. Turok had lived for decades here, and many of his proudest moments - and most terrible evils - had taken place here. 

The rough, grey walls and floors of coarse stone were, for the most part, left undisguised. His daughter Rumina had been fond of silk tapestries and intricately woven carpets in her personal quarters - though in keeping with the family motif, she made sure that her furniture was crested with silver skulls. Unfortunately, most of their possessions had been destroyed in an explosion just at their moment of triumph over Sinbad and his ragtag army several months ago. Turok had left the scorched and broken pieces where they fell amidst the rubble. He had more important things to do that redecorate at the moment. 

His last memory prior to that day was of Sinbad, soaring through the air in some ridiculous contraption, swinging a sword straight aimed straight at him-- and then everything went black. He'd returned to consciousness to find his head on a dais several feet away from the rest of his body. As soon as he'd seen it, he knew exactly what must have happened: that dratted sailor had managed to kill him after all. How utterly humiliating for a sorcerer of his caliber to be bested by a mere boy! 

Fortunately, Rumina had preserved his body with her magic, and kept it safe in his absence. His spirit had been revived by the demon Scratch, a coarse but extremely useful ally, who also wanted Sinbad dead. In exchange for Rumina's cooperation, Scratch would revive her father completely. Rumina, being such a devoted daughter, had agreed to the bargain, conjuring an army of monsters to eliminate the sailor and his wretched band once and for all. 

He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened on that fateful day. But something had gone wrong. He'd heard Rumina shriek in pain and terror, and then there had been an explosion - and when he came back to consciousness again, he was restored to his body again. Being buried in several feet of rubble was barely noticeable in comparison as he laughed and laughed in triumph. 

When he finally dug himself out, he was surprised to find himself the only living being in the room. Having upheld his end of the bargain, Scratch had already vanished. More concerning: there was no sign of Rumina anywhere. 

At first, he didn't allow himself to worry. Rumina was a big girl, and a powerful one, more than capable of taking care of herself. No doubt she'd merely stepped out for a few minutes and would return at any moment to assist her father. 

Despite his glee at his resurrection, Turok was still very weak and it took a long time for his powers to be restored. Even now, they were still only a fraction of their former glory - a constant, irritating reminder of Sinbad's meddling in his affairs, and his own hubris. Fortunately, the man was dead now, or else why would Scratch have restored Turok as he'd promised? 

But when several days passed and Rumina still didn't return, he began to suspect that the situation was much worse than he had originally thought. 

He didn't put it past that demon not to have abducted his daughter. It was a loathsome, treacherous thing to do, but Scratch was a loathsome, treacherous demon, just like all demons were - it came with the job description. Turok hadn't liked the way Scratch had looked at his daughter, and neither the presumption or innuendo was appropriate for a person of Rumina's exalted station. Of course, she had more sense than to take up with a creature like that - but what if Scratch hadn't given her a choice? 

At this point, he began to get very, very angry indeed. 

Anger, of course, did not help the situation directly, but it was fuel that helped him regain his strength. Once his magic was sufficiently restored, he would be able to determine his daughter's whereabouts and well-being. Rumina was the apple of his eye - there were no lengths Turok would not go to get her back - to the very depths of hell itself, if Scratch was truly holding her against her will. 

He fervently hoped she hadn't gone willingly. But then again, Rumina was prone to these fits of passion - just see how much she'd moaned over Sinbad! It was disgusting! Scratch might not have been much of a looker compared to that pesky sailor, but at least he was sufficiently _evil_ enough that Turok would not be ashamed to be associated with him. 

Still. It was better not to think about a demon son-in-law unless he had no choice in the matter. He fervently hoped that wasn't the case here. 

Fortunately, his most important tool had survived the explosion - a pool of water, carved out of the rock wall, that allowed him to spy across the surface of the earth. He spent hours gazing into it, searching for Rumina. There was no sign of her anywhere. He could no longer feel or locate her with any magic he possessed, even as his powers grew stronger by the day. 

So he went at last, with a heart full of foreboding, to see the Cyprian Oracle, that condescending little minx. It hurt his pride, but he had exhausted his other options - and the gods she served would strike her dead before she lied to him. 

There was good news: Rumina was alive. She wasn't with Scratch in the underworld at all. 

The bad news: apparently, she was sailing with Sinbad, of all people, who had stubbornly refused to die in the battle after all. 

At first, he couldn't believe his ears. He half-expected the Oracle to fall dead at his feet for her falsehoods. Instead, she just laughed and laughed, caught in some hysterical trance, until he'd given up and retreated back to the familiar caverns of home to pace and fume over the unwelcome news. 

Sinbad! Still alive! Was there no justice in this miserable world? And Rumina was sailing with him - how was this possible? Had her infatuation with that pathetic sailor caused her to forsake her senses? Had she abandoned her loving father for her father's murderer instead? Was she - he paled to even think of it - _good_ now? Oh, the ignominy of it all! 

Turok was not a coward in the strictest sense of the word. One did not become a master of dark magic if they lacked the boldness to tread paths into which most people dared not venture, after all. Still, it took several weeks before he'd mustered sufficient courage to peer into his magic pool at Sinbad's doings. One way or another, he must know the truth. 

He bent down over the water, holding the image of that wretched man in his mind, seeking, searching. And waited. 

He'd hoped against hope that the oracle was wrong after all and Sinbad was safely dead - but no, the reflection in the pool wasn't his own face, it was Sinbad, off his boat and riding on some sort of horse - part of a convoy or something. How gauche. 

Turok gestured with his fingers and the view widened, panning away Sinbad's features so that his surroundings were more visible. As expected, the man was accompanied by a small entourage. If Rumina was truly traveling with Sinbad, perhaps she would be among them. 

His gaze skimmed over some unfortunately familiar faces: a grey-haired burly man, a foppish tinkerer, and a dark, silent warrior, all on horses of their own. There was no sign of the clumsy magician Dim-Dim's red-haired apprentice. Good. 

Turok's lips curled in a smile at the memory of how cleverly he had trapped the old man in another dimension. He hoped that the apprentice had suffered a similar fate. Sinbad was bad enough on his own without any magical assistance. 

Wait - there was someone else, someone he hadn't seen before. She was riding on her own horse ahead of the others, wearing an exceedingly ugly yellow dress, something his Rumina would never be caught _dead_ in. (Rumina was always so fashionable, and nothing short of perfection would do for her!) This woman had long dark hair like Rumina's, but it was tied back, a depressingly practical arrangement. He couldn't see her face. That wasn't Rumina, it couldn't possibly be Rumina - 

Turok watched as the mysterious woman halted her horse, paused for a moment as if looking for something she couldn't see - and then turned around to call out to her companions. A shock of recognition hit the sorcerer and he reeled back from the water's edge as if he'd been punched in the gut. 

"No. No. It can't be. It can't be." He sank to his knees, leaning against the rock, the reflections vanishing as his concentration shattered. "That's--impossible." 

He thought back to what he'd said to the Oracle: " _Where is my daughter, you bitch?"_

True to form, the Oracle had given him exactly what he'd asked for. 

It took a long time for Turok to collect himself enough to get to his feet, and still longer before he felt calm again. Not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined anything quite like this. 

He was going to have to watch the sailor and his companions closely - especially _her_. He would wait for the perfect opening to reveal himself. And then he would get his daughter back. 

Nothing - not even Sinbad - was going to stand in his way.


	2. Chapter 2

Bryn shuddered as her horse crested the rise, a thrill of foreboding sweeping through her entire body. Her skin crawled, and her hair stood on end, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. It was as if someone was _watching_ her intently, and whoever it was didn't feel friendly. They were powerful, too - the sheer _weight_ of their attention numbed her legs and sent painful pins and needles through her arms and shoulders. It was intense, heavy, and invasive and she wanted to struggle and scream, do anything to make it go away, and she was frozen in the saddle, unable to stop it--

\--And then the sensation vanished as abruptly as it arrived, and she could move and breathe normally again. 

She managed to convince her horse to pause for a moment while she regained her bearings. Whatever life she had lived Before had apparently not involved much work with animals, which made the horse's quick obedience that much more satisfying, as well as unexpected. 

Rongar had offered to let her ride with him when they'd initially set out, but she'd refused - partly out of pride and partly out of determination not to let herself be so easily beaten by an animal. Doubar and Sinbad were skilled riders - where had they picked up that talent with all their voyaging? - but she was pleased to note that Firouz wasn't handling his own mount with much grace, either. 

Sinbad had been right when he'd claimed that life with his was never boring. In the month or so since she'd taken up with the captain and crew of the _Nomad_ , there were no shortage of adventures. 

There had been long, calm days at sea, and several storms, the most severe of which had required a day and a half of repairs. They'd traveled to several port cities, where exotic cargoes were loaded and unloaded, and most of the crew got violently drunk during shore leave. She'd walked through half a dozen marketplaces filled with dizzying arrays of merchants, browsing the merchandise with Firouz, with curiosity and wonder that matched his own. Sinbad and Doubar haggled with the vendors and arranged their next commissions, occasionally pausing for random acts of chivalry for the beautiful, poor or helpless folk they encountered. 

Under Sinbad's careful tutelage, she'd learned the arts of sailing. She'd hauled rope, tied sails, and clambered up and down the riggings at all hours of the day or night, until it was second nature. He had a knack for making even the most complicated maneuvers seem easy enough, and he never condescended to her. 

With the exception of Doubar, Firouz and Rongar, the other sailors were not so kind, muttering jokes and gossip under their breath when they thought she couldn't hear. They held their tongue to her face and when the captain was around, and that was as good as it was going to get, so she didn't push it or complain to Sinbad about it. 

Over the time, they softened as they saw how hard she worked, how she wasn't afraid to call them on their bullshit, and how she got no special treatment from the captain. Beating up one or two of the worst offenders on the side didn't hurt either. Every job they did, she did, too, and eventually, they accepted her as one of their own. 

Once Doubar had even let her hold the tiller under his close supervision (which Firouz assured her later was a great honor; the first mate had once vowed that no woman would ever steer his ship while there was breath left in his body). Bryn thought it was his way of apologizing for getting off on the wrong foot when they first met, when he'd used the word "witch" in her presence. She was grateful he didn't seem to bear a grudge against her for challenging him in front of his friends. 

There were some men who would not be nearly so forgiving and stab her in the back later if she didn't get them first. Somehow, she knew that even though she couldn't say how she knew it; it was simply an accepted truth of her universe and she had no idea why it was so. 

There were so many things like that - little snippets that floated up out of nowhere in her consciousness, devoid of any relevant context. She knew certain things - how to walk and dress and defend herself, how to speak Greek and Arabic and how to vaporize a man where he stood with magic - and not others, like horseback riding or sailing. The magic part was especially concerning, as it didn't seem to be under her conscious control much of the time, particularly if she was in danger. 

Outside of her own name, Bryn had no memory of any family or friends, or who she had been before she washed up on a beach in Cyprus, wandering through a strange city where she'd been captured and nearly sacrificed to the local deity before she'd escaped into the surrounding wilderness. There, she'd been accosted by a curious hawk, when Sinbad had tumbled down the dunes to land at her feet. 

Somehow she'd been drawn into Sinbad's orbit and gone with him when he'd sailed away from the island. Now here she was, a part of the crew herself. Life was certainly full of strange twists and turns and there was little use in guessing what fate had in store for her next. With Sinbad, anything could happen, and usually did, if even half of the stories she'd heard from Firouz and Doubar were true. 

A familiar cry pierced the air, and she looked up to see the aforementioned hawk, Dermott, soaring high above her in wide, lazy circles. Dermott had belonged to Maeve, who had gone missing not long before Bryn met Sinbad. In his mistress's absence, Dermott seemed to have adopted Bryn, which she was still getting used to. 

For the most part, it was surprisingly simple. Dermott mostly took care of himself, though he appreciated bits of dried meat and fresh fish guts whenever the opportunity presented itself. Mostly, he seemed to want her company, seeking her out with an alacrity that seemed almost human at times. There was intelligence behind those piercing brown eyes that seemed to reach all the way to her soul, and his chattering imitated the ebb and flow of human speech with remarkable precision and timing. He certainly had a sense of humor - particularly when Sinbad was involved - and was fond of teasing the sailor, and enjoying the good-natured cursing that inevitably followed.

Once or twice, she thought she saw flashes of other places, other times, the world from strange perspectives, the sea, distorted visions that made no sense with human eyes. And then they would vanish, and the world was calm again. She was certain that Dermott was somehow responsible for these visions, yet she wasn't sure how or why, or what message he might be attempting to convey to her. 

Well, perhaps it wasn't surprising that Dermott was so unusual. Maeve had been a magician's apprentice, with growing powers and a temper as fiery as her hair. From the crews' stories, Maeve was a force to be reckoned with, flinging fireballs left and right to destroy stone giants and massive skeleton armies at will. An intelligent avian familiar would have been right up her ally, particularly if Doubar's comment that Maeve and Dermott could share thoughts and feelings could be trusted. 

It was clear that the crew had been fond of Maeve and that Doubar and Firouz, at least, considered her family. It was equally clear that Sinbad had felt more than that for Maeve, though he never spoke of her except in clipped, harsh whispers that made it clear he did not appreciate Bryn's interest in the matter. Any scraps of information she gained were done behind the captain's back; no one, not even Doubar, would mentioned Maeve to his face unless they felt there were no better options. 

Sometimes Bryn felt as if she'd stumbled into a drama that didn't belong to her. There were too many stories, too many connections she didn't share with these people. Yet here she was all the same, dragged in by some mysterious fate or the cruel whim of some god or another. Would she become a part of the story, too? Or would she remain on the outside looking in, a perpetual stranger, without anything that truly belonged to her alone? 

Sinbad insisted that Bryn's past didn't matter, that she could re-create herself now and become whoever she wanted to be. She appreciated his point, but she wasn't sure that the past was so conveniently rid of. She wasn't a completely blank slate, she was a person with a past, even if she couldn't remember it. And someday that past would catch up with her - she was certain of it. 

She hoped she would be ready for it when it did. 

_I wish we'd gone to see that oracle Firouz said they visited on Cyprus. Maybe she could have helped me figure out where I'm going, even if where I've been is a lost cause._

She turned back to Sinbad and the others, who were a few lengths behind her over-eager mount, no doubt curious as to why she had halted in the first place. "I don't like this. It feels like someone's.... _watching_ us. Someone powerful - and especially friendly." 

Sinbad nodded calmly, taking in the view of the valley below as he scanned the horizon for any signs of trouble. When she first met him, he'd been simply dressed in a white tunic with loose, blue pantaloons that billowed out and caught the air when he moved, and his hair had been short and his face clean-shaven, making him seem much younger than his years, almost boyish, with a grin that made his face glow like sunshine sparkling on the sea. Since then, he'd taken to wearing tight-fitting blue trousers that accented his shapely thighs and foregone the loose tunic for a more fitted garment. His hair, now growing out, and stubble on his chin gave him a roguish, rugged look, and Bryn rarely saw him smile or laugh anymore.

Not all of this transformation was intentional. It was obvious to everyone that Sinbad was still grieving the loss of Maeve, though he would never admit it, not even to his older brother, Doubar. It was as if the woman was a ghost, haunting the Nomad and dogging her captain's footsteps even in her absence.

Sometimes Bryn wondered if Maeve were haunting her, too. After all, Bryn was living in her cabin aboard ship, wearing her gauntlet and supervising her hawk after the sorceress's abrupt disappearance. She hoped not. She really didn't want to deal with ghosts, let alone the ghost of a jealous woman who really had no reason to be envious of Bryn's position. Sinbad was a good-looking man, there was no doubt about it, and confident and capable and kind as any she'd encountered to date. Yet he was clearly so in love with Maeve right now that any attempt at flirting or romance Bryn made would likely be rebuffed. 

And besides, she wasn't sure that sleeping with Sinbad would endear her to the rest of the crew, or make her position among them more secure more secure. It was better to keep it simple and professional for now. Much less complicated that way. 

She hoped that would be enough to keep any ghosts off her back, at least for now. 

"Interesting," Sinbad said, though it was clear he hadn't seen anything that would account for the watcher Bryn had sensed. "Rongar, do you notice anything out of the ordinary?" 

Rongar frowned, and shook his head, his meaning clear: _No, I don't, but I agree with Bryn that something's off, even if I can't articulate what it is._ He never spoke aloud, but he was very skilled at getting his message across - whether via expressions, gestures, body language, or a complex series of signs that Bryn still quite hadn't mastered. 

(Bryn flushed, remembering that awkward moment in her first full day on the _Nomad_ when she'd asked Rongar _why_ he didn't talk. He'd opened his mouth and she'd seen there was nothing where his tongue should be and gestured that he didn't want to continue the conversation. She'd burst into tears and flung her arms around his shoulders. It was difficult to say which of them had been more startled by the gesture, but Rongar had clearly been moved by her sympathy, and didn't seem to hold her faux pas against her.) 

Firouz stared at the valley below through his magniscope, a clever series of glass lenses in a retractable brass frame that he had designed and had manufactured by artisans in Alexandria according to his own exacting instructions. It allowed him to see things from far away, and was quite a useful device to have on hand. "Well, we certainly ought to make it to this castle before nightfall. I can just see a tower beyond the far side of the forest." 

"I hope we don't miss dinner," said Doubar. The first mate, a big man with a grizzled gray beard, enjoyed the pleasures of life to the fullest, particularly those that involved mealtimes.

"I'm sure our host wouldn't be so ill-mannered," Sinbad agreed. "Her messenger back at the tavern in port said we would be honored most lavishly when we presented ourselves." 

"What exactly does she want from us?" Bryn asked. She'd missed that particular conversation, having stepped out to find the latrines, and then by the task of managing her horse once they'd gotten on the road. 

"I'm not exactly sure," Sinbad said. "She's wealthy landowner of some ancient noble line, offering a substantial reward to anyone who can retrieve an artifact of some kind that was lost long ago. Her servants have been scouring the local taverns for someone who can get her what she wants. But they wouldn't give me any details about it. Said we had to hear it from their mistress directly."

Doubar chuckled. "Oh, I bet there's a scandal behind that for sure. Some secret she doesn't want getting out to the common folk." 

"We'll see." Sinbad was nonchalant about the possibilities, no matter how lucrative, preferring to focus on the matter at hand. "Bryn? Do you sense anything else?" 

"It's gone now, whatever it is. I don't feel anything now," Bryn said slowly. She was pleased at Sinbad's trust in her intuitions, even if she herself didn't understand where they came from or why. It would have been all too easy for him to dismiss them as foolish feminine fears, and she appreciated that he seemed to take her warnings seriously. 

"Well, let's keep going. With any luck, we can make it there before nightfall. I'd rather not be after dark in this strange country if I can help it, particularly if something evil is afoot."

He urged his horse onward, and the others followed in his wake. 

*** 

They passed through the forest without incident and reached the castle just as the sun was setting. It might just have been the fading light, but something about this place felt _off_ to Bryn - although in a very different way from the unseen observer she'd noticed earlier. 

The castle gates were broad and tall, and the keep itself was surrounded by a massive stone wall. The guards let them pass unmolested when Sinbad had announced his name and purpose. They rode into an open courtyard, over which a high tower loomed, presumably the one Firouz had spotted from the rise earlier. The courtyard itself was empty and barren, and there was no sign of any stable for their horses or servants to direct them. "Strange," said Sinbad, as they dismounted (Bryn less gracefully than she would have preferred), holding their horses' reigns to keep them from straying . "I wonder--" 

No sooner had the words left his mouth, when a dozen guards entered, swords in hand, with a decidedly unfriendly attitude. "Drop your weapons!" shouted their leader. "Now!" 

"Sinbad, what is this? A trap?!" Doubar exclaimed.

Sinbad shook his head. "There must be some sort of mistake," he said calmly to the guards. He passed his horse's reins to Doubar and spread his hands out in front of his body, conspicuously away from the sword at his waist. "We're here to see your mistress about the job she's offered us. There's really no need for any of this unpleasantness--" 

With another shout, the guards charged forward, swinging wildly at them. 

"Or - we could fight, I guess." Sinbad shrugged and reached for his sword as the others did the same. "Your loss." 

The crew was outnumbered, but Bryn had seen enough skirmishes to know that numbers alone didn't mean much. Doubar, in particular, excelled at brawling in close quarters, and claimed to have taken out twenty opponents by himself in one particularly memorable encounter. Sinbad was smaller, and more nimble, preferring subtlety to brute strength, but an equally effective fighter. Rongar was no stranger to combat, and brutally effective with knives, swords or even his hands and feet, delivering punch after punch to anyone foolish enough to wander within range. Even Firouz was capable of holding his own if the situation called for it, though his talents lay more in healing and inventing than in fighting. 

Combat was something Bryn had clearly experienced in her life Before - she was a surprisingly effective fighter given that she retained no conscious memory of any training whatsoever. The key was not to _think_ about what she was doing, but to let her body take over completely in the moment. Given the sheer chaos and rush that inevitably ensued in battle, she'd never found that to be a problem. There simply wasn't any time for thought. There was only action and reaction, movement and impact, followed shortly thereafter (if you were lucky) by cries of pain that weren't yours. 

Still, more than once after surveying the devastation she'd unleashed, she couldn't avoid the questions racing through her mind. _Where did I learn how to do this? Who taught me and why? What was my life like Before? Why can't I remember what happened?_

Sometimes, too, her magic would flare up and then whoever was bothering her would just--disappear completely. She'd only done it once in Sinbad's presence, but she could tell he'd been unnerved by it, and Sinbad was not a man who was easily frightened. She hoped that if it happened again in front of the others, the crew would be grateful for her skills rather than fear her for it. It wasn't something she had conscious control over, so there wasn't much point in worrying about it at the moment. 

Unfortunately, though, they'd only gotten halfway through their opponents when more guards poured into the courtyard from all directions. Even worse: most were carrying loaded crossbows, with the bolts pointed directly at them. 

Sinbad was no fool, and dropped his sword. "We surrender!" he shouted. There was a clatter and a clang as the others followed suit, their hearts still racing from the sudden adrenaline, staring at what could easily be their death if things continued to go wrong. 

"I was going to say 'we come in peace,' but you started the fighting," Sinbad said, amazingly calm under the circumstances. "Now could we please see your mistress--" 

"You'll see our mistress when she's good and ready to receive you," the leader of the guards cried. "Take them to the dungeon!" he shouted to his men. as the five of them were dragged away by the castle guards. 

***

"Well, brother, this is shaping up to be an excellent adventure," Doubar said, as he picked himself off the floor of the dungeon and dusted himself off. The guards had thrown them down a short flight of stairs into an open dungeon, and slammed the heavy wooden door behind them before any of the crew could chase after them. No one had been gravely hurt in the scuffle, although Firouz had a scratch on his forearm that was bleeding copiously. 

"Oh, we've been through far worse," said Sinbad - a little too casually for Bryn's taste, considering how easily they had been disarmed and trapped. "It's amazing what can happen in places like these. Remember that time with the Caliph of Baghdad, when you and I found each other again after our old ship broke up --" 

But whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a head popping up abruptly in the far corner, as what Bryn had thought was a lump of rags in revealed itself to be a man chained to the wall. Although he'd clearly been through hardships, and hadn't bathed in a long time, he was surprisingly handsome underneath all the dust and signs of ill-use. He was roughly the same age as Sinbad, with long, straight hair that hung loose all the way down his back, deep black and with a texture Bryn had never seen before. His skin and his eyes were almond-shaped, with a deep intensity and calm that reminded her of Dermott's. 

_A predator's eyes_ , she thought, _but not an evil one_. Even with the rags and chains, he carried himself like a warrior, with an inherent nobility that reminded her of Sinbad, somehow, even though they looked nothing alike--

"Sinbad! Is that you?" 

Sinbad whirled around, clearly startled. When he saw their fellow prisoner, recognition, relief and joy all passed through his face like a lightning storm, bright and unexpected contrasts from his typical grim expression. Bryn hadn't seen him smile like this since the day they'd met - the same day of Maeve's sudden departure, when Sinbad had still thought he might find her quickly. 

"Tetsu! What are _you_ doing here?"


End file.
